page_title: East Bengal F.C.
section_title: 1940s – 1970s
hierarchical_section_title: East Bengal F.C. / History / 1940s – 1970s
caption_attribution_description: English: East Bengal FC team after winning 1949 IFA Shield
context_page_description: East Bengal Football Club is an Indian professional football club based in Kolkata, West Bengal. The club competes in the I-League, the top flight of Indian football. The club is regarded as one of the most successful clubs of South Asia.
  Founded in August 1920, the club became affiliated with the Indian Football Association in 1922 before earning promotion to the Calcutta Football League first division in 1924. East Bengal won their first league title in 1942 and have since gone on to win the title a record 39 times. The club was also a founding member of the National Football League in 1996 and have won the league title three times. They have also won eight Federation Cups, three Super Cups, a record 29 IFA Shield titles, and a record 16 Durand Cup titles, making the club one of the most decorated in Indian football.
  The club is supported mainly by the immigrant population, who were forced to leave their homes during the partition of 1947. For those people, the East Bengal club became a source of identity and hope. The huge influx of dispossessed led to a socio-economic crisis in the state.
context_section_description: It took the club till 1942 to win their first IFA First Division title. The club won their first IFA Shield in 1943. They then achieved the double in 1945 by winning both the Calcutta Football League (CFL) and IFA Shield. In 1948, East Bengal became the first team to defeat a foreign club on home soil. They won 2–0 against the visiting Chinese Olympic XI. East Bengal won the first treble in the 1949 season, by winning the Calcutta League, the IFA Shield and the Rovers Cup. It became the first Indian club to win the treble. The club went on to win the 1949 Rovers Cup and the Durand Cup in 1951.  That period saw the rise of the Pancha Pandavas. The five players, P. B. A. Saleh, Ahmed Khan, K. P. Dhanaraj, Appa Rao and P. Venkatesh played together at East Bengal from 1949 to 1953. The club also won the DCM Trophy for the first time in 1950. The club also won three straight IFA Shields in 1949, 1950 and 1951. The English F.A. 1951–52 annual almanac adjudged East Bengal as the best club in Asia. On being recommended by the president of India, Rajendra Prasad, the club was invited by the Romania Youth Festival Committee in 1953 to participate in a football tournament. They also partook in a tour of the Soviet Union the same year. They were defeated by Soviet side by a margin of 13–1. Apart from football, East Bengal also won Beighton Cup hockey tournament for the first time in 1957 and Bengal Hockey Association league in 1960. Again the club won the Rovers Cup several times during this era—1962, 1967, 1969, 1972, 1973, 1975—as well as the Durand Cup in 1952, 1956, 1960, 1967, 1970, 1972 and 1978. The club also won their first Sait Nagjee football tournament and Bordoloi Trophy in 1968. The club stunned everyone by winning the 1970 IFA Shield against PAS Club of Iran by a score of 1–0, in front of 60,000 supporters at the Eden Gardens. Later the club won the 1973 IFA Shield by defeating Pyongyang City SC of North Korea. In cricket, the club won both the Cricket Association of Bengal senior league and senior-division knockout tournament jointly with Mohun Bagan. In 1978, East Bengal won its first Federation Cup title.
  East Bengal won the Calcutta Football League for six straight years from 1970 to 1975. In 1970 East Bengal won the Calcutta Football League without conceding a single goal. East Bengal won against their arch-rivals, Mohun Bagan, multiple times including a record margin of 5–0 in the history of the Kolkata Derby, in 1975. In the same year, East Bengal won the CFL title without losing a single match. The 1970s decade of the club is also commonly known as "Shonali Doshok" (in English Golden era).
caption: East Bengal FC players after winning 1949 IFA Shield
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